


Sleepover

by SabrinaUmstead



Category: That '70s Show
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Child Abuse, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Platonic Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-15
Updated: 2020-12-14
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:13:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28082985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SabrinaUmstead/pseuds/SabrinaUmstead
Summary: In 1968 at Eric, Kelso, and Hyde's sleepover at the Forman house, what if Red and Kitty catch an unpleasant truth from Hyde about the abuse he suffers during childhood during an innocent game of truth or dare?TRIGGER WARNING child abuse. Really self indulgent fic I made to project my issues onto Hyde so I'm sorry if it's really angsty djdskj. Really hurt/comfort central too with little kid Hyde! and mommy and daddy figure Mr. and Mrs. Forman!
Relationships: Kitty Forman & Red Forman & Steven Hyde, Kitty Forman & Steven Hyde, Red Forman & Steven Hyde
Comments: 6
Kudos: 13





	1. Truth or Dare

September 26th, 1968. The day of Eric Forman's "most fun, spectacular sleepover in the whole wide world!" 6:32pm and Donna had to head home for the day, she wasn't allowed to spend the night at boy sleepovers yet. That just left Eric, Kelso, and Hyde sitting in the Forman living room in front of the turned off TV. Red and Kitty were just leaving the den and passing through the living room as they caught the tail end of the boys game of truth or dare. 

"Hyde, truth or dare?" Eric asked. 

"Truth." Hyde replied. Eric was initially surprised in the beginning of the game when Hyde chose truth the first time after 4 dares. To any 8 year old boys mind choosing 'truth' in a game of truth or dare was the wussiest thing you could do. Even Eric has only chosen 'truth' once through-out the whole game. Eric tried to burn Hyde about his initial 'truth' and Hyde replied "people who only choose 'dare' are just afraid of the truth." Eric chose 'truth' his next turn after that. 

"Have you ever peed your pants?" Eric snickered, knowing the great thing about Hyde was that he never backed down from neither truths nor dares. Surely Hyde will admit an embarrassing secret to us, Eric thought. 

"Yeah, my mom sometimes locks me in the closet when she brings a boy home and makes me stay in there until he leaves, and I can't hold it." 

He said it so nonchalantly Red almost plummeted into Kitty when she froze from opening the door leading into the kitchen. Eric and Kelso almost didn't seemed fazed. Almost. 

"Why is your mom having boys around? Where's your dad? My dad would be so mad if my mom had boys around, unless they were her dad, or my uncles." Kelso shared. 

"My mom says they're my uncles. My dad's on vacation." Hyde replied not quite looking Kelso in the eyes, instead finding fascination with a piece of loose thread on his sweater. 

Red and Kitty heard about enough of this conversation, forcing their feet to unfreeze. "Steven, sweetie, can we see you in the kitchen real quick?" Kitty asked with a gentle voice. "Eric, honey, why don't you put on the TV for you and Michael?" 

"Why?" Hyde asked while Eric reached for the remote. 

"Yeah, we were in the middle of truth or dare, it was my turn." Kelso backed him up. 

"Why don't you just take your turn with Eric in the meantime, Michael. Steven will be right back." Kitty replied, not letting the sense of urgency she felt come through in her voice. 

"Okay." Kelso huffed and sank back into the couch as Steven started getting up off the couch and making his way into the kitchen. He took a seat at the kitchen table and Red and Kitty followed in the chairs at each of his sides, not wanting to stand before him like they normally would and give the illusion he was in trouble. They wanted to level down to the small boy. 

"Steven, baby, so how often does your mom usually put you in the closet?" Kitty cautiously inquired. 

"Usually on school days. On weekends she and her boyfriends go out somewhere." 

"And leave you alone?" Red cut in. 

"Uh-huh." 

"Steven, does your mom do anything else to you?" Kitty probed on. 

"Like what?" 

"Like hurt you." 

"Sometimes she hits me, like when I run when she tries to put me in the closet. Last week I accidentally burned eggs on the stove when I tried to make breakfast so she burnt me with her cigarette. That hurt." 

Kitty was about to cry and Red could tell, so he ushered the small boy back into the living room with his friends. "Thank you, Steven. Why don't you go back and play with Eric and Kelso now." He gently recommended and watched as the young boy scampered away. 

"Red," Kitty started opening up now that he was gone, tears in her eyes. "we can't let him live like this. We have to call CPS, get that wicked witch Edna arrested." She said with so much conviction her hair bobbed side to side as she knocked her head about, hands in the air with anger. 

"And then what, Kitty? Have him taken away to foster care? That is if they even take the case seriously and follow through, you know how them dumbasses are." Red scowled at the reality of it. 

"Oh, I know, Red. That little boy Billy who lives down the street with his uncle, I was talking with his uncle in the grocery store one day and he said he tried endlessly to get CPS on that boys parents when they still lived together. Endless, endless phone calls and not one thing done even though the poor kid had multiple slashes on him from being hit by a belt everyday and looked thin as a rail. His mother would tell them he works in the yard with his father all day for fun causing him to loose weight from the excessive exercise, and the slashes are from falling in bushes. Told them that she'd just remind him to eat more to make up for it and they just let her go, dropped it. Finally the uncle just decided to take the boy away from his mother and father himself. Oh, Red, why can't we just take Steven to live here with us? 

"We tried that last year when his father left and Edna seemed too drunk to take care of him, remember? She threatened that if we ever tried that she'd call the police and have us put away for attempted kidnap." Red rolled his eyes at the memory. 

"Oh, Red, we just have to try again. I can't sleep at night with visions of poor Steven being beaten up and us doing nothing. And even if CPS does take the case those foster families aren't much better than the real families. Remember the story on the news last month where 5 boys and girls were found chained at the ankle in the basement of a foster home? Oh, Red, I don't want Steven to be locked away in a cold basement. Or a closet!" Kitty cried into Red's chest. 

"Then he won't." Red reassured her. "We'll call tomorrow and set up a time to meet with Edna again. Until then he's safe here with Eric and Kelso. We also need to figure out something to do in case Edna denies again. I know what we can do." He assured and went to call Steven back in. 

"Steven, the next time your mother goes to bring a boy around I want you to call our house and we'll come pick you up, okay? One of us is always here to answer the phone while the other one is working, and on the odd chance both of us are out Laurie and Eric will be here with a babysitter to pick up the phone and they can just call our work. Understand?" 

"Okay." The boy responded in a voice that was smaller than either of them were use to hearing. 

"Oh, oh, oh, and Steven!" Kitty cut in with a solution of her own. "I want you to come to our house and join me in the kitchen every Monday after school so I can teach you how to cook a few things on the stove. How does that sound?" Kitty said smiling for the first time through-out this whole fiasco, excited to teach Steven how to cook. She tried teaching Laurie and Eric more than a dozen times and they just could not sit through it, they had no interest in it whatsoever. For Steven, it seemed cooking was less than a matter of interest than it was a matter of survival, Kitty thought. 

"Okay." Steven grinned, Kitty's smile contagious. 

"Okay, I want you boys to start getting ready for bed now, it's getting late." Red finished and started walking Steven back into the living room to let the others know. Kitty helped everybody start getting snuggled up in their pj's and washed up, brushing their teeth with blueberry toothpaste while Red set up 2 military cots in Eric's room. Hyde borrowed an unopened toothbrush from the Forman's, Edna stopped buying him one long ago.


	2. Heart of Glass

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In 1968 at Eric, Kelso, and Hyde's sleepover at the Forman house, what if Red and Kitty catch an unpleasant truth from Hyde about the abuse he suffers during childhood during an innocent game of truth or dare?   
> TRIGGER WARNING child abuse. Really self indulgent fic I made to project my issues onto Hyde so I'm sorry if it's really angsty djdskj. Really hurt/comfort central too with little kid Hyde! and mommy and daddy figure Mr. and Mrs. Forman!

2:13am Hyde's eyes slowly fluttered open with blurry vision, and a dry mouth. He was thirsty. He swung his legs quietly out from under the covers and over the cot, rubbing his eyes before tiptoeing to the door and down the stairs. The train on his pajamas sparkled brightly under the kitchen light he turned on, but not more than the glass he grabbed out of the cabinet to fill up with water from the tap. He filled it all the way up to the tippy top and was careful not to spill any, but not careful enough not to drop it as the heavy glass slipped out of his small fingers. BAM! Glass broke everywhere and it seemed only a second before Mr. and Mrs. Forman came trotting down the stairs to find him standing in shock, mouth agape and staring at the broken glass pieces surrounding him. Without thinking, Mrs. Forman dodged the glass shards in her bunny slippers to get to where Steven was standing, pick him up, and gently set him down standing in the area by the refrigerator where there was no glass. 

"Are you okay, Steven?" She leaned down to him and asked. 

It took less than one millisecond for the boy to burst out in tears. "I'm sorry, please don't hurt me!" He hiccuped and darted eyes between Red and Kitty. "It was an accident! I was thirsty, I'm sorry." He continued sobbing, arms stiff at his side, eyes squinty, and face red. 

At that moment Red couldn't stand there any longer and swooped down to the boy, sat on the floor with his back against the fridge and scooped the pile of sobbing mess into his arms, rocking him gently. "No, Steven, shhh," he cooed, "we would never hurt you. We would never put a hand on you. You're safe here, we know it was an accident, son." 

"Yeah, Steven, we know it was an accident, baby. It's okay." Kitty reassured, coming down to kneel beside them. 

"I'm sorry." Steven hiccuped into the cup of Red's neck, arms rapped around the strong father's shoulders as Red and Kitty repeated the mantra "it's okay" to him and "you're safe" until the hiccups and sniffles came few and far in between, and the young adolescents arms went limp around Red's shoulders. 

"Do you want to take him back up to Eric's room and I'll start cleaning the glass?" Kitty whispered, careful not to wake the sleeping boy. 

"Sure, I'll be down in a second to help you." Red murmured and somehow, with the help of Kitty's strong hand, stood up off the floor without dropping the curled up kid in his arms. 

It was no time flat before Red tucked Steven back in bed, with surprisingly neither Eric nor Kelso waking up during this whole fiasco, and made his way back downstairs. Grabbing a mini broom and dustpan on the way to assist his wife in cleaning. 

"He thought we were going to hit him, Red." Kitty stated matter of factly, starting low conversation while they both cleaned. 

"I know. That boy's going to be scarred for life, Kitty. He's going to start having flashbacks." Red stated sadly. "You know how sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night after a nightmare and think I'm back fighting for my life in Guadalcanal? Or some stupid loud object we buy like those firecrackers 3 summers ago will remind me of bombs or something and I'll get all twitchy?" 

Kitty looked at him and nodded, pausing from sweeping. 

"Well unfortunately that's how it's going to be with Steven. Just with abuse instead of war. I can see it now." Red stared off into space, his mouth in a firm line. 

"What if he already has them?" Kitty asked, eyes watery and wide, snapping Red out of his thoughts. 

"He probably already does, Kitty. He probably had one tonight. He was terrified of us. I could feel his little heart pounding against my chest. Every time he makes a mistake over his house Edna must hurt him pretty bad. He probably looked at us and only saw all the times she put her cigarette out on him for burning breakfast, or failing a test, or dropping a vase, or whatever." 

"We'll talk to Steven about it in the morning and find out some more information, then go to Edna. Figure out what to do about this. I suppose all we can do right now is show him all the love we can." Kitty stated dejectedly as she threw away her dustpan of glass shards. 

"Yeah," Red agreed, following Kitty to the trashcan to dispose of his glass pieces as well. "The worst part is he didn't even get to take a glass of water, he fell asleep beforehand." Red smiled dryly, trying to bring any light at all back into the situation. Red and Kitty finished up, checked on the 3 sleeping children, then made their way to their bedroom soon after. Falling asleep knowing that if Steven were to have a nightmare, this time he would have Eric, Michael, Red and Kitty there for him.


End file.
